Saturday, 27 December 2014

The Fallen - Dave Simpson

THE
FALLEN - DAVE SIMPSON

"We are The Fall." as Mark E Smith declared on the
debut album 'Live At The Witch Trials' back in 1978 "Northern
white crap that talks back." And almost 40 years later, on
stepping onto the stage at any Fall gig Mark still introduces the
band by declaring "We are The Fall" even if it's
just him and his granny on bongos. It's a pertinent point for amongst
other things The Fall are famous for having a bewilderingly high
number of line-up changes over the years and it's this that
journalist Dave Simpson has chosen to write a book about, naming it -
naturally - The Fallen.

In excess of forty musicians have passed through the ranks of The
Fall in almost as many years and Simpson makes it his mission to
track down each and every one of them though his reason for doing so
is never really made clear. He's a Fall fan, of course, or perhaps
that should be a 'Fall obsessive' and it seems to him to be a
perfectly reasonable thing to do.

"Ha ha ha ha ha. You're crazy!" says former lead
guitarist Marc Riley who along with all other ex-members that Simpson
approaches, still agrees to be interviewed. For Simpson, he imagines
the former members might hold the key to the legends of The Fall and
that they're a piece of social history, as in decades of music seen
through the eyes of the foot soldiers. Mark E Smith, however, fails
to understand and finds it all very boring: "I don't
understand the big deal with it." he says "They
came, they saw, they fucked off and now I no longer see them. The
Fall are about the present, and that's it."

Mark also fails to understand why former members are so quick to talk
about their Fall-years (or days): "It's as if they've been to
Vietnam or had a particularly fraught space-excursion and their
senses have been obliterated. It's all they can talk about, it's all
that remains in their fried heads. I'm thinking about setting up a
post-Fall-syndrome therapy hour. That'd chase a few wolves from the
door." And as often is the case, there's a lot of truth in
what Mark says because what comes over in the interviews Simpson
conducts is that the former members are indeed in need of some form
of therapy and use their interview as a way of getting it for free.
There are certain things some of them still can't bring themselves to
talk about: dark, drug induced secrets; demons they still shy away
from addressing, though strangely they all say they'd return and play
with The Fall again if asked.

Of all the former members, the most interesting is Kay Carroll who
from 1977 to 1983 sang backing vocals but more importantly, was the
band's manager. By all accounts Carroll was (and still is) a
formidable woman who terrified her fellow band members. She was also
Mark's girlfriend at the time. According to Carroll, The Fall's
entire 'no sell-out/outsiders' stance was her creation, her 'musical
instrument'. "I brought an ideology to The Fall and Mark
carried it on." she says.

The ex-member offering the best insight into The Fall is perhaps not
by coincidence also a woman, that being Brix Smith, former
guitarist/backing vocalist/'stylist' and also Mark's wife at the time
of her being in the band. According to Brix: "Like a great
painting, what people make of The Fall is actually a reflection of
themselves." This idea is expounded upon by ex-member Marcia
Schofield who played keyboards, who suggests that The Fall are a
mirror and Mark E Smith is "a walking, cultural Rorschach
Test."

The thing about these specific offerings is that not only are they
from women but they also echo my take on Albert Camus' book The Fall
(see a previous review), from which Mark, of course, took the name
for his band. And it's funny that of all the people interviewed by
Simpson - including Carroll, Brix, and Schofield - none of them not
once mentions Camus' book or even hints that they've ever read it.

Simpson just about succeeds in his quest but apart from an article in
The Guardian and the completion of his book, in the end he actually
has very little to show for it. In fact, he seems to have lost more
than he's gained for not only has his girlfriend of 17 years left him
- tired of taking second place to his Fall obsession - but he's also
received withering condemnation from Mark E Smith himself for 'the
hatchet job on Fall members past and present'. But then what did
he expect? Particularly as at times in the book he comes across as a
stalker, even at one point lurking around outside of Mark's home and
asking neighbours if they know who lives there? And sure they do.
"Mad Mark", as one of them replies with a shrug, as if to
say 'And? So what? What's it to you? What's it to anyone?'

And so consequently, if as Brix Smith suggests The Fall simply
reflects and as Marcia Schofield suggests that The Fall is a mirror;
what we're left with at the end of the book is a not very flattering
portrait of the author Dave Simpson going through a very long and
slow nervous breakdown. The one unexpected blessing for him being
that though he's not actually become a member of The Fall, in a
certain way he has become a member of The Fallen who like the others belonging to that particular club who he's tracked down and interviewed, seems to be in need of some form of therapy.